Monday, April 30, 2012

1047. In this comic we get a list of equations! I can't be bothered to check any of them to see if they are supposed to be funny or useful or what. I looked at this and basically lost interest immediately because I couldn't fathom a universe in which I would ever care about it.

1048. I AM SAD BECAUSE OF CANCER. HERE IS A CHART ABOUT MY SADNESS.

1049. As much as I hate to be even remotely negative of anything bashing Ayn Rand, I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't point out that Randy implies that he agrees with the majority of her philosophy except for the part about being a dick. This means he is a colossal moron.

And now, for your viewing "pleasure," here is a guest review of 1048 from possibly Jon Levi, possibly someone just pretending to be Jon Levi, who even cares:

Title: Emotion; Alt text: Fortunately, the internet has a virtually inexhaustible supply of code that doesn't work and people who are wrong, which bodes well for a return to normalcy. [Note: Click to read context for the cancer comics. She's doing well.]

Diagnosis report for Patient ID XKCD1048, who is hereafter to be referred to as 'Patient R'

During a productive therapy session on Friday 27th April, I asked Patient R to write down a list of all the things that made him emotional in the last six years. He quickly listed six items, but struggled to think of any more. I suggested he filled in the two blank spots with 'other' and '? ?'. He then insisted on plotting a graph of them, which is extremely troubling. If the graph is truly an accurate representation of how he feels, then Patient R is mentally ill and needs strong intervention.

At any one time in the last six years, Patent R has felt strong emotion continuously and persistently towards five or fewer things at any one time (according to the graph). These are clearly obsessions towards unimportant emotional triggers. Perhaps he spends hours at a time reading all the political articles on a news blog, or poring over a piece of broken code. In his mind he is pressing the same metaphorical buttons again and again because he lacks the capacity to be bored by them.

His emotional ritual has no room for other triggers such as music, nostalgia, and injustice (beyond the narrow categories he has defined). It is likely that he does not care for anything that does not ft his predefined pattern of emotions.

Patient R's condition degraded significantly in November 2010, when he emotionally latched onto an issue that was entirely beyond his control. At any one time since then, at least 75% of his emotions have been related to his wife's cancer. This combined with his older obsession of romance. Having such a complete infatuation with one person is unhealthy, and leaves him unable to respond emotionally to any other aspect of his life.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect is how well he hides it. In fact no one knew he had a problem until today. Patient R has put on a facade by pretending to care about other things, such as DRM, space exploration and feminism. Although looking back through his comic archive one can begin to see that some of his drawings were nihilistic cries of help. But he did not express the true nature of his problem until he decided to make a graph of it.

If he accepts the therapy, he will be pleased to know the condition is quite curable. He will be able to revert to a childlike emotional state, and rebuild himself from there. However the alt text of his comic exposes none other than a wish to return to the 'normalcy' of his pre-2010 period. If he declines, then I will refer him to Dr Ann Apolis M.D. for more intensive treatment.

Signed

Dr Jon Levi

The contents of this letter are private and confidential, and are not to be posted on any hate blogs.

Stage 1 in Asperger recovery is to realise that Ayn Rand's conclusions are disconcerting. (In the same way that the most crude analysis of Mein Kampf might involve double-take at the spirit of "so that's why we have to eliminate the Jews" which emerges.)

Stage 2 is to calculate that her reasoning is bullshit.

Stage 3 is to observe that her premises are bullshit.

Stage 4 is to study her work in the context of her troubled life, rather than as an "objective" philosophy.

Stage 5 is to look back at yourself and see how your immaturity contributed towards your previous attitude.

Aww look, rejecting a philosophical system you've only learned about second-handedly, not on any rational basis, but by writing it off as a side-effect of a medical disorder. Which is the more relevant comparison to Nazi eugenics, again?

The trouble with Rob is that he's the shy gay male equivalent of Catherine Tate's "am i bovvered?" character. If you tell him he's shit, he vigorously argues that he wasn't trying anyway.

Having said this, Carl tried too hard, which is a worse offence.

In conclusion, the only common thread here is that we all think xkcd is awful and that Randall is emotionally abusing his cancer-riddled milk factory of a wife. If you expect anything more, you'll only be disappointed, and you should commit suicide.

1) "Causes of emotions" doesn't include "Family" or "Friends". Bit of an omission, we all depend on one another for

2) Ayn Rand. Ohhhh.

And this is when I realise that Randy is failing harder at life than is ok to make fun of. I feel like someone who called the service retarded, and then my waiter turns out to have Down Syndrome. Whoops.

you people should be ashamed of yourselves attacking a man who puts his creativity and ideas on the line, you dont need to like his art, or his jokes, or even him personally, but you should be able to respect the fact that it is difficult to put yourself out there like that and just try three times a week to make something people will love. this blog is a disgusting testament to what the internet is capable of in the hands of ignorant children. and to your criticisms about the cancer chart comic, how dare you mock a man for trying to express his pain like that? who the hell do you people think you are? you represent the very worst of humanity and i hope you never have the chance to pass on your hateful, bile spewing ways to future generations. the people of the future will be much richer for having never met you.

posters like you should be ashamed of yourselves attacking a hate blog where people put their creativity, opinions and ideas on line, you don't need to like this blog, or the comments, or even the posters personally, but you should be able to respect the fact that it is difficult to put yourself out there like that and just try to think beyond the preconceived social barriers stifling free speech to make comments about things people should hate. your post is a disgusting testament to what the world will become in the hands of close minded sympathy nazis. and to your defense about the cancer chart comic, how dare you support a man for trying make money out of the pain and suffering of others like that? why the hell do you morons think we care? you represent the very worst of humanity and i hope you never have the chance to pass on your ignorant, mentally retarding genes to future generations. i have sent this post to you from the future where we are much richer thanks to the eradication of your kind.

cuddlefish like you should be ashamed of yourselves attacking a troll who puts his shitty opinion on the line, you dont need to like his comment, or his jokes, or even him personally, but you should be able to respect the fact that it is difficult to put yourself out there like that and just try one time ever to make a comment people will love. this reply is a disgusting testament to what the internet is capable of in the hands of ignorant cuddlefish. and to your criticisms about the ayn rand comic, how dare you mock a man for trying to express his pain like that? who the hell do you people think you are? you represent the very worst of humanity and i hope you never have the chance to pass on your hateful, bile spewing ways to future generations. the objectivists of the future will be much richer for having never met you.

not that you're a real XKCD fanboy, but i have never understood the whole "haters gonna hate" thing. it's a mindless way of dismissing criticism of something you enjoy--people hate things for a reason, and that reason is not "they are a hater." sometimes it's not a very good reason--for instance, I hate Randy because I have a deep-seated milk fetish that I have concealed even from myself, so I turn this unacceptable feeling into hate for all people with milk fetishes--but it's a reason. calling someone a "hater" is this vapid tumblr-esque way of making sure you never have to leave your echochamber.

Harmless? HARMLESS? Clearly you have never met a woman whose breasts have been chewed off because of the insatiable need for more milk. Or a dairy farmer who has had to euthanize his cows because there is no longer any demand for his products. Or a breast cancer survivor whose husband leaves her because she can no longer produce milk (though in the long run, she's better off for it).

leopards like you should be ashamed of leopards attacking a leopard blog where leopards put their creativity, opinions and leopards on line, you don't need to like this leopard, or the leopards, or even the leopards personally, but leopards should be able to respect the fact that it is difficult to put a leopard out there like that and just try to think beyond the preconceived leopard barriers stifling free leopards to make comments about things leopards should hate. your leopard is a disgusting testament to what the leopard will become in the hands of close minded leopard nazis. and to your defense about the leopard chart comic, how dare you support a leopard for trying make money out of the pain and suffering of leopards like that? why the hell do you leopards think we care? leopards represent the very worst of humanity and i hope leopards never have the chance to pass on your ignorant, mentally retarding genes to future leopards. leopards have sent this post to you from the future where leopards are much richer thanks to the eradication of leopards.

I think that's just the same character after he gets spun back around. Though now that you mention it, it actually would be a funnier comic if everyone who was about to check out a crappy book got trapped in that little room forever.

No, no, no. I am not affronted at your suggestion that the reader of your comment make their own webcomic -- surely any reader of this blog would have the good sense not to churn out shit. No, what offends me about this post is the blatant disregard for the entire purpose of this website -- to criticize Randall's work. Yes, we do think he's doing a terrible job! And we have the right to criticize him for that! One minor webcomic won't make anything better, won't uphold the golden standard of webcomics in any meaningful way. We have every right to call Randall a hack for the crap he calls "comics", and suggesting we leave him alone and do our own work is insulting (especially since you don't have to be a comics artist to criticize a terrible comics artist!)

Go read Rob's list of 10 terrible arguing techniques. Or just go away. If you don't like this hate blog, go make "a better one."

I do not have aproblem growing my nails long, and they are strong, however the free edges are almost clear. They are transparent, and i don't know how to keep get them white. Is ther anything I can do to help this?

he transparency is from moisture in the nail. Actually it's a fairly good thing. I know, I have the same problem with my nails because they are so flexible when they are see through, all they do is tear (not break, not crack,TEAR).

I'm a nail tech and you just need to keep a nail hardener on them and avoid buffing if they are thin.

It seems you are implying that haters should hate everything, all the time. I'm assuming you expect "liars" to lie about everything all the time, "happy people" to be happy about everything all the time, "rude people" to be rude to everyone all the time, and so on?

Well, if you do, then you're wrong. You're probably not wrong about everything all the time, though. Maybe it's just on this one, at this moment that you are wrong. But you're so wrong that it's skewing my judgment of you as a whole. I can't think clearly, my mind resounds with your words. Frankly? I think you should fucking die, pal, and rid us of your disgusting ways and stupid opinions. "Innit?" "Innit?" Looks like it's the only word you know.

You are pathetic. Don't you have anything better to do with your time? No one is forcing you to read xkcd! You're just biased against it because you're jealous; if you think you can do so much better, where's your webcomic? Besides, some comics aren't supposed to be funny, something you apparently fail to grasp. And all art is subjective, anyway. Dumbass.

Don't you have anything better to do with your time? No one is forcing you to read this hate blog! You'r just biased against it because you're jealous; if you think you can do so much better, where's your blog? Besides, some blogs aren't supposed to be nice, something you apparently fail to grasp. And part of art being subjective means that people are allowed to not like it. Dumbass.

Given that xhh's post consisted ~90 percent of the titles of Rob's rants on the left side of the page or close approximations (excluding only the last one, "It's okay to copy jokes!"), I'm pretty sure s/he was kidding. But perhaps I have too much faith in humanity.

Given that 1:53's post consisted ~90 percent of xhh's original text or close approximations of it (excluding nothing, but I want to retain this parenthesis), I'm pretty sure s/he was kidding. But perhaps I have too much faith in humanity.

Given that 8:20's post consisted ~90 percent of 1:53's original text or close approximations of it (excluding nothing, but I want to retain this parenthesis), I'm pretty sure s/he was kidding. But perhaps I have too much faith in humanity.

It is kinda funny, but it's worth remembering that the troll comic was over the weekend, which is a low traffic period for most forums, and that the bookshelf is disproportionately represented by a few people defending their honour on the field of internet battle.

from time to time in your life you have to face your shit, esp when you just noticed that what you uploaded was in the fact the raw comic, and that it's not what you intended. oh, you could act like all the other faceless cowards out there, and hope that your fail will be misconstrued as a clever joke of some sort, like "man i'd so wish randall to make comics sans his legendary verbosity, but it's too good to be true!" but no, that's not who you are, you won't stoop so low. you also have to admit that while your joke wasn't funny originally, it will be even less so now that you have to make it for the second time. but still, you face your shit because you're a man

Comic 1050: "On the other hand, being bad at math is totally cool: "I'm so terrible at math I can't even add lololol," when mathematical ability correlates directly with intelligence, and skipping it serves no intelligible purpose."

How the fuck is cooking useless unless you're some kind of giant manchild (e.g. by demanding that your cancer-ridden wife prepare all meals, being too lazy to eat anything that requires any effort, getting all your nutrients through breastfeeding, etc)?

He explained it before. Because it takes time to prepare and clean up, which directly translates into lost cash money via potential income, and because some ingredients will be wasted while you learn, it is actually cheaper to take out for all of your meals. Randall knows this because he is good at math, which may be unsuitable for Basic Life Skills majors.

I don't understand people who say they can't cook and so never cook. I mean, you just heat some meat and/or vegetables up and then eat it. Throw in some spices maybe, they're cheap so why not? At worst you'll throw them in at the wrong moment and the flavor will fail to integrate. Doesn't matter. You don't have to be dining on fine cuisine every meal.

Doesn't matter where I'm from. Don't need a fucking recipe. I never use them and my food turns out fine. Your food would turn out fine without them too. People were cooking long before anybody started arbitrarily following recipes. Plenty of cultures out there continue to neglect recipes. Unless you're cooking at a French restaurant, it's not as precise a science as you may believe. You don't need recipes any more than you need crib notes telling you how to wash your clothes.

"People were cooking long before anybody started arbitrarily following recipes. Plenty of cultures out there continue to neglect recipes."

you're speaking of *written* recipes. i'm willing to bet recipes have pretty much always been passed on to later generations orally. only people who had to learn how to cook were adam and eve. but then again, since they never existed, nobody ever had to learn how to cook

Only an aspie would say that cooking is "easy", because only an aspie is so incapable of understanding that other people have different strengths and weaknesses to him. If you actually step back and spend a moment to gain self-awareness, you'll see that cooking involves lots of observation and judgment. And by cooking I don't mean emptying a tin of baked beans into a microwave - I mean combining ingredients to make a palatable, nutritious and presentable meal, whether breakfast, snack or dinner.

My partner was once part of the kitchen staff at an award-winning restaurant in Scotland. Even the way she prepares scrambled egg today is a labour of love. And you can dismiss her processes only until you see and taste the difference between throwing something in a pan and what she does. We are intelligent animals. Our first imperative is to eat. If we are fully satisfied by what we eat, we are much more productive and content.

Saying it's good enough to throw a few things together and add some random spices and seasoning is like saying it's good enough to pass junior high and spend your life as a casual labourer, never even trying to master any skill. (Or, more PERTinently, it's like doing an undergrad degree, giving up your vocation, then drawing unimproving stick figure comics about breast cancer for the rest of your life.)

I feel that the reason more people don't cook is because of douches who imply that it is some innate ability like breathing. This makes people feel crap that they can't cook so they don't even try. But to cook well, as with any art, you have to try - and again, as with any art, because it's really unlikely that you're a natural genius (and even if you are) you start off by observing the work of others. "Following a recipe" is fair enough, but even a recipe assumes all sorts of things a beginner wouldn't know: what's "a pinch", how low is a "low heat", and how "brown" should it go? So, find the best woman^Wperson you know with cooking skill and ask them to teach you. They may enjoy the activity as much as you do.

Penultimately, if you really enjoy your meals, you're much less likely to be too thin or too fat. Finally, weaselsoup, you know about too many guys' underwear - but I would still cook for you.

Plus, we have the internet now. There's so much stuff available in terms of recipes, plenty of places suited to different skill levels, some that describe things in ridiculous detail- and of course, it's the internet so you can look up stuff like what a 'moderate oven' is. There's even software to manage your ingredients for you which you can load recipe databases into and know how much to get and when to get more. You won't become a world-class chef but you'll be able to eat far healthier and far more cheaply than you would by ordering out.

One time, I was stranded in the middle of no-where. It started snowing and didn't stop. I realized I'd have to make a shelter or freeze. Long story short -- I learned how to cook fish over an open fire, and that frozen poo makes good stink-bait.

My parents' ~40 year old oven is probably the best example I can bring up for why "moderate oven" will trip you up. Sure, you can set the dial to some figure on some web page's estimation of "moderate", but that'll be completely wrong. You'll need an oven thermometer. And it'll certainly depend on which shelf you put the item on - and even where you choose on the shelf. Depending on what you're cooking, you'll need to rotate/stir to prevent burning. And then you have to take account of how the temperature changes each time you opened the open.

In short, you can make great cakes in this oven - but not if you actually follow a recipe.

Would things be better with a well-insulated, well-calibrated, fan-heated oven? Perhaps. If the guy writing the recipe has the same model as you, you're in even better luck. If every student just graduating from Pot Noodles had a chef's class oven too, well, life would be dandy.

There are lots of people who can't prepare a main meal - it's one of the disability yardsticks in the UK for the lowest rate of government help. But for those who are sufficiently physically and mentally able, you're right, there is no excuse. But you have to try, and you must not expect it to be easy.

And I maintain the best help you can get is through being guided by someone who knows what they are doing - whether that's your partner, your folks, or the cute girl who probably *will* give you attention if you ask her to teach you to cook.

this is all very true. getting to know the idiosyncrasies of your oven is super important in baking. as is common sense. look at your cakes & take them out when they're done rather than after the exact amount of time the recipe says etc. practice & common sense is all you need. & willingness to try again if it goes wrong.

if this post was xkcd it would be a comic about how cooking is the same as sex. there would be a lame double entendre, a terrible attempt at double bluffing - "you thought when i said 'put a bun in the oven' i was going to turn round and go 'lol I'm talking about sex!!!' but i have fooled you cos instead i'm going to bring in that beret wearing fuckwit and go 'aha! i was really talking about baking all along ahaha lololol'" even though Benny Hill would go 'man that trick is old as the hills'. luckily for all of you this post is not xkcd

Err, not everyone lives in Soviet Russia - there's a great proportion of people who don't have to "make a living" to live, particularly those living off unearned income/capital. I'd include hucksters in this like Randall and other cult-preachers.

Nor does everyone live in the USA - sane countries have a Pay As You Earn system for most workers so they don't have to ever fill in stupid tax forms.

We have that system in Australia, but we still have to fill in a form at the end of the year so the tax office can make sure the balance is right and either pay some back or ask for more. It's great for people who don't know how to save, because when they get some back they think they've gotten free money. Then they spend it all on beer and gadgets.

No-one reading this blog has sufficiently complex finances to need an accountant.

Really, filling in a tax return yourself is appropriate for almost everyone - and almost anything you don't realise you can declare to reduce your tax burden is not going to be large enough to offset the cost of an accountant.

No contradiction. Asking a friend for help if you're a little dyscalculate - or even to check for silly mistakes - isn't the same as needing an accountant. I'm assuming your friend doesn't charge accountant rates. In the UK, unless you're S/E earning a lot or have a variety of unearned incomes, you hardly have to supply any detailed information.

I'm a single male caucasian living alone on a slightly-below-average income without work expenses, debts, investments, or dependents and I can definitively confirm that there is absolutely nothing complicated about doing a tax return.

after my first year as a freelancer they wrote me a letter - it said they were suckers, but it was also threatening to come and take away my computer and investigate everything i had ever earned. it was just a standard random audit thing, but the way they go about it is pretty scary. especially for the dyscalculic and easily intimidated. having an accountant to take that on for me was worth every penny. sure i probably could have managed, but the level of paranoia that such things can inspire is worth paying to avoid

I've never had an audit myself, but from speaking to others, it (in the UK at least) tends to be thorough but fair. From my understanding, despite the complexity of the system, the principle of the audit is very simple: (i) if money has gone into any of your accounts, they want to see that it's been declared; and (ii) you need a pile of appropriate receipts summing to expenses. Did you have a similar experience?

But it remains, as anything the government feels like doing to you, intimidating. I'm of a nervous disposition and would probably be in a huff about it even though I tell the truth and I'm fairly sure I haven't ever made an uncorrected mistake. Ho hum. Hope it went OK for you and they've left you alone since.

Turns out the discussion for the "MY WIFE HAS CANCER BUY MY SHIT" comic proved me wrong about the moderators on the forum. I thought they never banned me either because they didn't bother, or because it would open up a very bad precedent (dislike the comic = BAN). Turns out they banned me permanently, and they only did it now because they're a bunch of immature pussies. But then again, what could I expect from a forum like that?

I KNEW that I was walking on thin ice by poking at the mods with such a short stick, but it's hilarious to see them stoop that low so quickly. "U BAN! ME WIN!"

You know, I thought you did a pretty shitty job. First post in that thread was fine, but then you started sounding very stupid. And now look at you, you're claiming victory because you got banned. WOW MAN INDEED YOU'RE AWESOME. One day I killed someone in front of a cop; I got tried and they put me to jail. Then I screamed: "GOTCHA HAHA".

Basically I got to the point that I really didn't care anymore. I was appalled by the immature, thick-headed attitude of some of the mods and the obtuseness of many of the arguments, and when they cut off my sig (oh, they just did it because it was funny. Yeah, right), I knew they could do anything to me any time they wanted. I'm not claiming victory. I am just stating that I didn't expect the mods to be such complete dumbasses, and I'm pretty shocked. Some of the members are plain idiots, but I always had the impression that the mods were at least a little bit more open minded and mature. I was proven wrong in the most shocking way possible.

I don't think being banned = victory. I wasn't being a troll. Besides, claiming victory against THOSE guys? I'd rather stay away from any kind of competition or comparison.

"Some of the members are plain idiots, but I always had the impression that the mods were at least a little bit more open minded and mature."

Come on, they were looking for a good reason to ban you all along.

Anyway, shitting on the comic is fine. Shitting on the comic *on the xkcd forums* is fine, depending on how you do it (yeah yeah I know you were actually doing it for xkcd to improve. Oh no wait you were doing it to enlighten the poor brainwashed xkcd fans. Ah, my bad again, in fact you just wanted to have interesting discussions with the other members. Wait, no, etc.) Shitting on the comic, its fans and its author, on what is more or less the official fanclub of this comic, while basically saying the author doesn't care about his wife except for the money he can cash in on her disease, on a thread filled mostly with posts by people who are struggling/have struggled/have relatives who are struggling with said disease, when additionally you know that some of the people there including mods are (possibly close) friends of the author and his wife, is the work of a Zealous Asshole. And now seeing you basically crying about how t-t-terrible the mods are for banning you, the Misunderstood Martyr, is just laughable. You are an attention-whoring troll. Or you're simply stupid. Either way, nobody cares you got banned -- and by nobody cares, I mean everybody's either "HAHA" or "YAY!!" about it. Lastly, we're not on the xkcd forums here; if I want to tell you "fuck you, you little piece of shit", "I hope you'll die", or "CAN YOU REPEAT PLEASE I DIDN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF YOUR DEAD MOM'S ANUS EXPLODING DUE TO MY COCK BEING A TAD TOO THICK" (<I just actually grossed myself out), I can! I'm not willing to start a debate here, just wanted to tell you that I think you were *really* being a dick, and that there's a huge difference between saying stuffs here and on the xkcd forums.

AND YES I WROTE A SERIOUS REPLY BAD ME. Needless to say, I'm not speaking in the name of anyone but me.

On another note, your music is interesting. BTW, notice how nobody left you hateful comments on YT.

So Fernie Canto went into a bit of an unsophisticated babble because he was fed up with the fora. Who cares? You and I both know that Randall is exploiting his cancerous wife for profit in the most disgusting manner, and while the truth may hurt, it's nothing like "killing someone in front of a cop". As for the "and some of the mods KNOW CANCER too!" argument, oh, shut up. Like all families, mine's had a few cancer deaths. My gf's sister has terminal cancer right now. It doesn't mean that cancer is sacred or that you can't be dalliant in your discussions of cancer. Should a man who has suffered a fall demand to ban slapstick?

As long as you don't strive to gain from suffering, i.e. do not behave like Randall, everything's cool.

the sacredness thing - that is interesting, just like the personality cult thing. You see it a lot, this sort of special category of awful undeserved suffering that people put cancer into. Sufferers are noble victims; they battle extreme injustice. (one friend who's had two separate cancers tells me she hates the language of 'battling' cancer and the assumptions and implications behind it, but that's one individual view only etc)

But also it's a very common thing, isn't it, don't they say one in three people will get some sort of cancer? The huge variety of cancers - cancers caused by lifestyle, cancers caused by environmental or genetic factors, aggressive cancers and slow-moving curable ones - sure,the differences are somewhat represented in general attitudes, but not as much as they maybe would be if they didn't all share the terrifying name cancer.

attitudes towards people with heart disease (even if it was genetic) are way less sympathetic for example. but someone suffering from it can suffer & die just as horribly as a cancer patient.

Old guys with prostate cancer who are likely to die of something else first are perhaps not as saintly in public opinion as young women with ovarian or cervical or breast cancer, or children who lived under pylons and got leukaemia, true. but in general there's a lot less victim blaming than for say heart disease, and a lot more martyred 'this is the worst thing anyone could possibly be expected to suffer - how dare you not RESPECT them' than there is for say MS.

I'm not saying that if there were comics about 'my wife has kidney disease' people would be less caring, of course, but I do think there would be something less of the 'you can't criticise' about some of the responses

i'm not trying to minimise anyone's suffering or refer personally to anyone. it's general perceptions and attitudes that i'm talking about

I've had cases of cancer in my family too. Like I said in the forums, I've seen my share of suffering; and I'm not the kind of petty, egocentric asshole to pull the "my father had cancer, you can't criticise me" card, and I could have done it all the time, I could have explored the hell out of it. But I'm not that kind of asshole, and I won't play martyr with someone else's neck. Unlike Randall.

And I think it was a given that what I was doing on the forum was really far fetched. That was precisely the fun of it: nobody else was doing it. And it was always great to see the "enlightened few of humanity" turn into complete creeps because of ONE grumpy guy. It's fun to come here, but you know, it made me feel a bit like a coward. But now I've seen the mods are worse, then fuck it.

I'm not questioning your opinion that I was a dick (what am I, a cuddlefish?), but I'm saying that I just don't care. I didn't care back then, I care a lot less now.

Quite, weaselsoup. To put it in political terms, it's another one of those divide&conquer things. Ideally we would accept that all people are human and thus all get ill/disabled, with their condition and prognosis almost always being influenced by environmental and genetic factors. Instead we differentiate between "your poor thing!" (deserving poor) diseases and "you made your bed!" (undeserving poor) diseases. The Good AIDS v. Bad AIDS sketch of Chris Morris makes the point more hilariously than I can.

The more we judge, the more we break unity. The less united people are, the closer each individual can get to the Ozymandian dream of being able to shit on the corpses of our vanquished enemies, or something.

People need to remember that Fernie Canto originally came to XKCDsucks to *defend* the comic. Then he realised that we were cooler over here, so he desperately started trying to fit into our culture instead of theirs. Here we see he overdid it on the XKCDforums and got banned. *yawn*

Dead God, 519! I had completely forgotten about that one. Before, thought 1050 had a pretty solid point buried beneath the strawman shit and the condescension, but now, I'm just convinced that Randall is a hypocrite of the worst kind. So school is awful and INTELLIGENT people like Randall learn nothing on it, and everyone should hate school, but God forbid if you criticse your MATH teachers!

I can imagine someone substantially interested in math having already done this sort of thing before he reached high school.

There's no sophistication here - no attempt to identify some sort of pattern, which is what mathematics is actually about.

I can remember in the '80s with my venerable BBC B Microcomputer letting it run for hours finding interesting ways of forming various numbers. And that was with a 1 MHz 8-bit 6502. Today the task is trivial.

It's basically a fuzzy Countdown "numbers round" style competition - we had them at school. I think I was 9 or 10. Yes, it was a good school.

I think you're trolling, but you're doing a sufficiently good impression of a cuddlefish that I'll bite.

1) That's true. One is an irrelevant fact and the other is an aspie obsession with collecting irrelevant facts on a particular topic.

2) Have you ever seen the number 1 million written down? I bet you haven't seen 1,000,000.000000000101 ever written down, though. What about 999,999.99999999999987654321? Think of all the numbers close to one million which you've never seen! Let's make a list!

3) It's not "an oddity of math". It's not math at all. Mathematics is about patterns. All Randall is providing is a set of lulrandum statements that two numbers obtained by different methods are approximately equal. Christ, it's not even numerology!

10:21 Sorry to break it to you, but the only thing you have to do to do a good impression of a cuddlefish is post anonymously. Write "fuck I hate xkcd so much" and post it anonymously, and you're playing cuddlefish.

I don't get this blog. I fully respect that you guys have a problem with the way that Randall does his comics, but why do you read them every week if they bother you? I know that it's popular and its hard to escape but don't you subject yourselves to this torment? You wouldn't be nearly exposed if you didn't read and analyze every aspect of a comic you claim to hate.

because all that is required for stupidity to prosper is for good people to do nothing.

just read the thread for today's abomination of a 'comic' for proof. 'wow!!! omg!!! goomh!!! i too think it's edgy and cool rather than creepy to boast that I click links that say autoerotic asphyxiaton !!! quick, let's think of a way to vandalise wikipedia as is traditional!!!!'

yeah so they're just a bunch of harmless idiots burbling harmlessly and congratulating each other on having nothing to say. if you can't see why that isn't immensely annoying then you're probably just a nicer person than me.

can't you understand that we're just slave to our immature emotions? we need to read xkcd, and we need to hate it clear and loud. we need the world to acknowledge that we are Not Happy about xkcd. we are like kids throwing a fit, except that our mommies don't care, so we indulge ourseves in unrestrained raging. but... could it be... that... we're waiting for God's intervention? maybe we just want Him to tell us in his stentorian voice: "son, quit raging, it is OK." oh my God, sorry for having ever disbelieved in you, i was so wrong... i will stop hating the world and randall munroe

I don't get this comment. I fully respect that you cuddlefish have a problem with the way that Rob does his reviews, but why do you read them every week if they bother you? I know that it's popular and its hard to escape but don't you subject yourselves to this torment? You wouldn't be nearly exposed if you didn't read and analyze every aspect of a blog you claim to hate.

Really, Randall is just picking it as a zany option. He's probably not interested in it at all. xkcd isn't entirely autobiographical, after all. He's playing into prejudice against a relatively harmless activity himself, really.

yeah. i go to the theatre, the circus, all the military fucking triumphs i can find. but do guys ever offer to bet on my favourite horse? do they lift my skirt from the dusty ground, brush away imaginary dust or offer me their cushions. do they heck as like. great advice, ovid

1051- no wikipedia article reads like that, and if it does it should be cleaned up. Couldn't he at least find a way to work the embarrassing links into an actual article instead of using "which is also" and "a few blocks from?"

There's something very simple that most cuddlefish simply fail to grasp: reading xkcd is not bothersome. It's the fact that xkcd EXISTS that is bothersome. Whether we read it or not, that crap is still going around and people are still showing it off like a badge of True Geekiness. Reading xkcd is, in fact, a way of making that fact less bothersome. And having some fun.

Is this REALLY hard to understand, or are the cuddlefish really that dumb? Well, they do enjoy xkcd, for starters.

Someone once said that it is difficult for us to grasp the concept of infinity (e.g. infinite space) because our mind is finite. Likewise, how could a person with an ounce of intelligence even begin to fathom the stupidity of cuddlefish?

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Divided into two convenient categories, based on whether you think this website

Rob's Rants

When he's not flipping a shit over prescriptivist and descriptivist uses of language, xkcdsucks' very own Rob likes writing long blocks of text about specific subjects. Here are some of his excellent refutations of common responses to this site. Think of them as a sort of in-depth FAQ, for people inclined to disagree with this site.